


And If So

by atomeek



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Spoilers for The Death Cure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8659063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomeek/pseuds/atomeek
Summary: If Newt had been the one to pull the trigger instead.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really in the TMR fandom anymore but I have a lot of half-written crap from when I was. This was one idea that I had early on but could never realize properly and it still didn't come out how I wanted it to but mrrghh it's been 2 years. Also, if this has already been done, I apologize, I'm not at all up-to-date with haha.
> 
> Spoilers for _The Death Cure_. Title inspired by _If So_ by Atlas Genius.

Thomas couldn’t do it.

He could not look his best friend in the eyes and he could not pull the trigger and he would not, not to Newt.

“Do it, Tommy!” Newt snapped again, viciously like some beast in the wild, but his words were all human, still human, and Thomas wanted so badly to tell him so.

“Newt, please, just come with me,” he begged, voice raw from speaking those same words over and over again. It was beginning to sound as if those were the only words he knew how to say; they were definitely the only words that mattered anyway. “We’re going to find the cure and we’ll all be okay. Just please don’t do this, Newt, please don’t.”

Despite being in the middle of the desert, the gun felt like ice in his hand, so cold it burned all the way up his arm as he held it uselessly by his side. 

He would not aim at his best friend. He would not shoot, not at Newt.

“I’m gonna attack you either way, Tommy,” Newt gritted his teeth and Thomas refused to wonder how they ended up tinted pink in the sunlight, his gums red like a burn, like the surface of the sun. “So do it before I do.”

“You’re not,” Thomas’s voice did not waver but his hands shook, a rattle time bomb, and he wanted so badly to wipe away the sweat from his forehead.

He wanted more badly to wipe the blood from the cut above Newt’s brow and the tears from both their eyes and if he could, he would, in a single stuttered heartbeat he would reach over, if only Newt would just come close enough for him to grab a hold on and never let go.

“I’m a shuckin’ Crank, of course I’m gonna bloody attack you, Tommy!” Newt’s head cracked from side to side in a wild fit, as if he were physically shaking unwanted thoughts from his heated mind. He was so forceful that Thomas was afraid he’d snap his own neck, creating bruises just by how hard he was holding onto the skin behind his ear. 

And then suddenly he stopped and blinked as if he had simply forgotten what he was doing, forgotten everything, all over again. The very idea that Newt might forget, will forget his entire life, their entire existence made Thomas fight all the harder.

“Newt,” he spoke carefully, eyes trained only on the other boy, frozen in the middle of a scorching desert. “You’re gonna be fine, just come with me and everything’s gonna be alright, okay?”

“You know how I got this limp?” 

“What?” Thomas blurted out and he almost missed the other’s words with how loud his heart is thrumming, how loud the noise is in his head.

“My limp,” Newt took a step forward, one leg stuttering just half a second behind the other and Thomas immediately flinched.

Newt was grinning when Thomas could find it in himself to look at the other again, several moments that feel like lifetimes later.

“I’ve been ready for so bloody long, Tommy,” Newt laughed. “Couldn’t even do that right without bloody help.”

Another step forward and Thomas wills himself not to move back. He wanted to get closer, needed to feel that Newt’s body was still physically here and maybe that will lead him to where the rest of him has gone, “You’ll help, right Tommy?”

“Not like this,” he spat, jaw trembling. The gun weighted his arm down and if his own fingers would let him, he would have dropped it long ago, but he no longer felt like he had control over any part of himself, could only watch from behind glazed eyes as he seemed to do everything wrong.

“If you’ve ever been my friend,” Newt bit out, eyes rimmed an angry red. “If you’ve ever considered me a friend, you’d do this, Tommy. For me.”

“No,” he shook his head, and it hurt to deny him this, physically made his heart clench in his chest and he had never hated WICKED more than he did in this moment as his hands shook on the gun, his voice choking up. “If I’ve ever been your friend, I’d have been able to save you.”

His eyes felt like they’ve never been dry before and even through all the tears blurring his vision, he could see the way Newt’s eyes cleared and it was him again, completely.

“You did.” 

Thomas felt the fingers wrapping over his hand, over the gun, and he felt Newt’s thumb slide on top of the trigger.

“No,” he said it again, as if a single, simple word could stop this. As if this was the way to save Newt.

“Please, Tommy,” a smile and Thomas was screaming without even knowing it. “Please.”

It was a question wrapped up in a plead, a smile wrapped up in blood and tears and if Newt thinks this was Thomas saving him from a fate worse than death then Thomas could swallow the bile burning up the back of his throat.

He wouldn’t shoot, not at Newt, whose eyes were closed and still for once.

 

 

Thomas barely felt the gun go off, heard it instead, as loud as if it had gone off against his own head and the ringing in his ears didn’t stop and the blood seeping from Newt’s head didn’t stop either so maybe it’s only fair.

Except he was the only one shaking, his hands trembling like they’ve been lifting the weight of the world for far too long and his muscles are finally giving in and breaking down at a faster rate than he could build them back up.

This is what decaying feels like, he thought in a moment of crystal clarity, _this_ is what dying means.


End file.
